FIG. 1 shows a cooling construction of an outer unit of a conventional air conditioner including a housing la having opposite air draw-in openings 7a and 7b, a heat exchanger 1 positioned in front of the housing 1a, an axial flow fan 2 positioned in rear of the heat exchanger 1 for producing an air flow from the air draw-in openings to the heat exchanger 1, a motor 5 driving the axial flow fan 2, and a shroud 3 guiding the air flow to the axial flow fan 2.
A compressor 4 for compressing refrigerant is positioned in the vicinity of one of the air draw-in openings 7b and a sirocco fan 6 driven by the motor 5 together with the axial flow fan 2 for discharging cooled air into a room, is positioned in the inner unit (not shown) of the air conditioner.
The cooling process of a conventional air conditioner described above in explained hereinafter.
Upon rotation of the axial flow fan 2 and the sirocco fan 6 by the motor 5, the cooled air cooled through the usual operation of the air conditioner is blown into a room by the sirocco fan 6 in the inner unit while outside air flows into the housing 1a through the oppositely positioned air draw-in openings 7a and 7b on both sides of the housing 1a due to the pressure difference across the axial flow fan 2 in the outer unit.
The compressor positioned in the vicinity of the air draw-in evening 7b, causes a drop of flow speed resulting in non-uniform flow speed as shown in FIG. 1 F and an increase of noise through the compressor is cooled by the air flow.
The drawn-in air, then, passes through the axial flow fan 2 guided by the shroud 3 and cools the heat exchanger 1 positioned in front of the axial flow fan 2 while passing therethrough.
It has been a problem in the cooling construction of conventional air conditioners outer unit that cooling by the heat exchanger part corresponding to the hub 2a of the axial flow fan where the air does not flow, is not effective.
It has been other problem in the cooling construction of conventional air conditioner outer unit that the direction of air blown by the axial flow fan and the orientation of the fins of the heat exchanger 1 do not match because the way delivering the air to the heat exchanger is blowing type, i.e. blowing directly to the heat exchanger, thereby resulting in the drop of flowing speed of the air and the development of noise.
As seen above, the cooling construction of conventional air conditioner outer units have the problems of the air flow speed drop due to the position of the compressor, existence of dead zone due to the hub of the axial flow fan and the air flow speed drop and the development of noise due to the mis-match of the direction of air flow and the orientation of the fins.